Paz

I would not find it easy to say a best scope but I can say the following... Best view of Venus... a draw between C8 and 102mm f7 refractor(!l). This was during a spring / evening season experimenting with observing in broad daylight with very strong dimming. Best view of Mars.... not sure, I've never had any view of Mars I would call epic partly as I've never had many good opportunities to get used to observing it when it is close. Best view of Jupiyer.... VX14, one evening still in dayligjt/twilight I guess the wobbly stack all lined up for.once, the seeing, scope cooling, planet altitude, collimation etc. Shockingly good views I have to say, the best view of any planet I've ever had and I still think about it years later. I was (selfishly) annoyed at the time by neighbours choosing that session to come over and have a look and chat which meant less time for me at the eyepiece, I said how amazing the view was but no-one really appreciated it. I guess you have to experience the bad times in order to appreciate the good ones.

I do sketches now and again, not to have a nice sketch but more because the process of sketching makes me see more. I have an A5 pad and a single HB pencil/rubber and that's my lot. The other aspect of my sketching set up is that I have to be using a tracking mount and I have to have my observing chair otherwise I find it too difficult.

I don't observe late in the night, and I observe all year round. The sun, moon, and planets are all good daytime targets. Then there are many double stars, showcase DSOs, asteroids, etc doable without needing dark skies or late nights.

Assuming £2k for the LZOs id a good price, its only a good thing if you actually want one. I agree with John's comment re what is the aim of having a SM125 and would the LZOs do better. The SM125 does well in terms of price, weight, aperture, cool down, and quality. I'm sure the LZOs is better quality but aperture counts for a lot also. I admit, if I was going to go for a top of the range 4" for visual I'd go for a doublet e.g. a Tak[censored]i and just wait for one to come along second hand. You would have epic quality and even less weight and faster cool down etc. I have a SM125 and a C8 and I think they cover different bases so having one doesnt make the other redundant, but a 4" is even further from a C8 so there's less risk of those scopes competing for attention.

I have the pairs at 20/15/10 for use with high magnifications barlows and glass path correctors which for example at 2.6x makes them equivalent to 7.7/5.8/3.8mm.

I remember reading about this at the time I was researching eyepieces but I can't remember if I did a test myself when I first got them. I do know I've got them set up in sky safari as 45 degrees, that might be me that added them in as that or that might be the stock eyepiece defaults in sky safari.

I have a set of SLVs as my light let up, currently 25, 20, 15, 10, 6, 4, 2.5, including binoviewing pairs at 20, 15, and 10. I've also got a 5 but that's on long term loan out. I think they are great and I got on to these due to needing more eye relief. I sometimes thing about swapping out the 10s and getting 12s and 9s for better intervals, but I continue to procrastinate about it.

That beats anything I've seen in a second hand store! It costs a lot but I bet for anyone who knows their books these kind of things have got the potential to earn money as an investment.

I read the astro physics guide to cleaning in my formative years and they advocate the following... 1. Blowing with air to get rid of anything not stuck to the lense. 2. Brushing lightly to get rid of anything lightly stuck. 3. Baader Optical Wonder Fluid to get most things off. 4. Acetone or your breath to clean off baader fluid streaks. 5. Saliva to get rid of super tough atmospheric contaminants... but the saliva then needs to be cleaned off fairly quickly. However, lense licking fetishists will be disappointed to hear that the recommended method is saliva on a fingertip, not licking lenses directly. https://astro-physics.info/tech_support/accessories/cleaningproducts/optcs-instructions.pdf Could this where the lense-licking folk lore originates from? I think cleaning is a very personal thing, my take on the above options is... Blowing 😇 Brushing 😬 Baader Fluid 😇 Breathing 🤔 yes but very lightly to avoid giblets on my surfaces Acetone 😬 Saliva 🫣

I've not had a Dob with built in goto or tracking but I do use an equatorial platform with my dobsonian for tracking sometimes. I'll use it when viewing things at higher magnifications in the faster parts of the sky and it makes observing much easier amd more enjoyable and I'll see more because I can concentrate more. However it is another contraption to manage so I don't use it unless the targets mean it is worthwhile. If I was getting a dobsonian now I'd be content with just having a tracking facility.

I mostly lurked on CN initially and as a result built up completely unreasonable expectations based on posts about huge scopes and epic skies, but I never really had the courage to post there. I then spent more time lurking over here and eventually joined and started posting. I don't have much in the way of confidence or interpersonal skills when it comes to people , and in real life I would not presume that anyone wants to hear anything I have to say, but on SGL people treat each other as equals and the standard of conduct is by far the highest of any internet community I've observed, so I am happy to participate here. I'm a member of many forums covering a number of hobbies and areas of interest but I just read and don't post. This is the only forum I am confident to post on. In real life I don't talk about astronomy unless I'm asked, which doesn't happen. We all don't know each other personally but it is nice to see posts by familiar forum members and as odd as it may seem, I notice when people drop off the forum and don't post for a while or sometimes stop posting and move on to other things completely, and from time to time I'll wonder how they are getting on, which is kind of a marker of what the forum can mean.

You could try them and you can decide if they meet your standards. If not you can tell them that on this occasion they have not been successful!

That looks tough, I've not clocked anything that close myself, but it's now on my hit list to try because why not. I have a 14"" but I think this will also need good seeing, good eyesight, and good technique, which doesnt bode well for me!

I still do the lense / mirror cover left on thing, that one never gets old! Glass path corrector are also a common source of my observing fails. I may be observing cyclops and there's still a gpc hidden somewhere in the optical path that I forgot was there, or I'm binoviweing and I find out the gpc in place isn't the one I thought it was etc etc.

How it feels to my eye/eyes trying to look at something focused too far away feels different to trying to focus on something too close. When I'm focusing I'm half thinking does it look in focus and I'm half thinking does my eye feel relaxed. On very dim objects I will be thinking more about if my eye feels relaxed to establish focus. Sometimes I get better results if I'm focused very slightly inside of infinity. I can tell my eye is not completely relaxed but only very slightly so.

How about a rebrand to spacecadetslounge? That has a ring to it! With the tag line... "be warned all who enter here, full nerdity abounds..".

Only 3 for me this January which is quite low. One solar session, one planetary, and one lunar. There have been a lot more opportunities than that but opportunities have to align with not having to other things. 2023 was 5 2022 was 11 2021 was 7 2020 was 8 2019 was 2 My notes go back to 2013 but I only have the above to refer to at the moment. My busiest months for observing are in the summer due to warm nights and having more time and energy to actually do some observing.

Yes a UHC filter will help with observing all those nebulae and is a good all rounder nebula filter. You can get more specialist filters that will do better in certain circumstances, which many obervers have, but then you are getting into choices with diminishing returns.

I don't have much I regret buying because I tend to research things to death and then procrastinate about it and think it around again and again. So when I eventually buy things they tend to do or achieve what I expected. My problem is opportunities missed on the second hand circuit because of the above characteristics.

I wonder how many people would have snapped up this scope but had to pass for this reason? 🤪

I think a 5" mak would be disappointing compared to those dobs, in terms of the increase in the workload of owning and having to manage more scopes oitstripping the increase in observing opportunities. I wonder if an equatorial platform for the dobs would be an option. That would mean tracking ability without compromising on aperture, retaining the simplicity of alt/az for manually finding things, and retaining a smaller and easier to manage slection of scopes. I realise advising anyone to have less scopes rather than more is a bit seditious - sorry everybody! ...but if have money to spend on a scope and nothing to lose, I would say a 102mm refractor would be more complimentary to the dobs in that it would give you a broader span of observing options to choose from overall.

I use this website to see what Lunar 100 targets are near the terminator. https://www.wilmslowastro.com/gallery/l100/index.htm

A great trip and great post. That's exactly the kind of thing I'd like to do one day.

I went out earlier for a short session. I only had half an hour from getting started to being packed up but managed it by going cyclops instead of binoviewing and skytee 2 instead of EQ5, and going straight out with an 8mm Delos in the focuser and not taking any other eyepieces out. The moon was the plan, and I concentrated on the central peaks and terraced walls of Theophilus. Very nice views I had a quick look at Jupiter and was excited to see a shadow transit, so I stuck with thatband dudntbgovback to the moon. I had not realised beforehand that one was happening. A good session and I would not have been able to set up and take down my 3" or 4" refractors any quicker than the 5".

I would flag the question of weight. What size and weight of mount will you want to use and what amount of vibes will you tolerate. This can guide what weight of a small scope it is ok to go for. I have a 72mm f6 apo that is my main travel scope now. I have an ST80 that has two advantages over the 72mm, one obviously is aperture but the other is light weight so less vibes, and thus latter point matters a lot when using light portable mounts. My 72mm apo doesn't have a rotating focuser, I avoided scopes withose to save weight. The reasons why the 72mm gets used most are that it has a better focuser, more available infocus, and stronger/better facilities to mount finders on it. I also have a 102mm f7 apo, but to me that is a completely different class and not what I would call small. A 102mm apo would compete with your maksutov, but a 70-80mm apo would be complimentary. I admit I would not want to go below 70mm of aperture myself.